


Sketch

by Liris



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist!Nick, Episode: s01e06 The Three Bad Wolves, Gen, Nick was raised as a Grimm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27513517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liris/pseuds/Liris
Summary: When Monroe is called in to give a description to the police sketch artist, the last thing he expects is to meet a Grimm.AKA the Artist AU that nobody asked for.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	Sketch

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Grimm fic, and I'm testing the waters with characterisation. If anything is awful, please let me know.

“Take a seat; our guy will be with you shortly.”

  
Monroe swallowed and sat gingerly on the chair next to the detective’s desk. He should have kept his mouth shut, should never have called the police after the pig had left. Sure, he’d seen the guy that had burst into his home with a shotgun, but he hadn’t thought that he’d be invited to describe him to a sketch artist. He’d just hoped to take some of the heat off Angelina; he knew that she hadn’t killed her brothers, even if he couldn’t tell Detective Griffin exactly why it was impossible. He also couldn’t give the man the motive for Rolf and Hap’s deaths, even though he knew what it was. He shouldn’t have said anything. He cursed and wondered how to go about describing a Bauerschwein to a human without sounding like a crazy person.

  
Detective Griffin left him sitting there with a cup of awful smelling coffee, and wondered off in the direction of a group of other officers. He tapped at the desk, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He would just have to say that he wasn’t any good at describing things, be purposefully awful, and that would sort it out. White male, about six feet, overweight. Why did they need any more than that? It clearly wasn’t Angelina, which was all he had been going for…

  
Griffin returned with a younger man in tow, a sketchpad tucked under his arm. This must be the artist. Monroe looked him up and down; brown hair flopped over his forehead, he had big grey-blue eyes, and was obviously fit. The guy looked like he should be a model, rather than an artist.

  
“Hi, I’m Nick Burkhardt,” the man said, holding out a hand. Monroe shook it warily, giving a less-than-enthusiastic quirk of his lips in return.

  
“Monroe,” he said, and Burkhardt tilted his head as he sat down in the chair at the empty desk next to Griffin’s. The Detective seated himself too and waved a hand toward the new guy.

  
“Nick is the best artist we have,” he said, and Monroe just caught Burkhardt rolling his eyes with an indulgent smile. “You describe the guy that killed your friend, and he’ll get us a picture we can put out there. Okay?”

  
Monroe swallowed. Well, put like that, he supposed that he needed to come up with a better description than he’d been planning on. He looked from Griffin, who was watching with anticipation, to Burkhardt, who was opening up his sketchpad, pencil twirling in his fingers. Monroe sighed.

  
“I’m not good at this,” he said, but stopped when Burkhardt gave him a gentle smile.

“I hear that a lot. Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think. I’ll ask you a couple of questions, you answer them, and if you see me drawing anything that looks wrong, let me know and I’ll correct it. Okay?”

Monroe sighed. He wished it were that simple. “Okay.”

Burkhardt beamed at him and adjusted his posture so that Monroe could see the paper. “So, what struck you about him most? What was the first thing you noticed?”

 _His snout_ , Monroe’s brain chimed in, very unhelpfully. He cleared his throat. “His nose. It was… large.”

Well, that was an underwhelming description. That didn’t stop Burkhardt from putting his pencil on the page and starting to draw a few lines. Monroe frowned. It wasn’t right, but how the hell was he going to explain that?

“Anything else?” the artist prompted after a moment, and Monroe sighed.

“Small eyes. He was overweight, wide face. I don’t know, man, I was a little focused on the rifle he was pointing at me.”

He closed his eyes, fighting off the woge that wanted to emerge as he remembered staring down the barrel. He had barely restrained the urge to dive forward, to tear into the pig that dared to threaten him in his own home, that had shot Hap and blown Rolf up. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but after his lapse with Angelina the night before, he was not going to fail again. He was Wieder, damnit, and he would not fall back into the pit of instincts and blood and pain.

He got himself back under control and opened his eyes to find the artist looking at him oddly, head tilted to one side, eyes slightly narrowed. He frowned. It wasn’t a concerned or sympathetic look, like he might have expected after saying what he had. It was more… assessing. Monroe blinked. Why was the man looking at him like that?

“Hey Hank,” Burkhardt said after a moment, looking away to the detective who was watching the byplay in silence. “I’m going to take Monroe into one of the interview rooms. A bit more privacy might help.”

Monroe wondered if this was normal procedure, and if so, why hadn’t they started in the room? Griffin didn’t react other than to nod, gesturing to the corridor behind them.

“Room three is free.”

“Thanks,” Burkhard said, then stood and indicated that Monroe should follow him. “We’ll be back soon.”

Monroe glanced between the detective, who was already turning to look at his computer screen – apparently, he wouldn’t be going with them – and the artist, who gave him a reassuring look before walking towards the interview rooms. He sighed, then stood and followed Burkhardt, who shut the door behind him. Monroe went to sit at the table, but stopped when the artist shook his head, laying his pad and pencil down before moving around the table and putting his back to the far wall, hands held out in front of him. It was a submissive posture, very ‘look-I’m-not-holding-a-weapon’, and Monroe frowned. What was going on?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Burkhardt said quietly, and Monroe blinked.

“Right,” he said, nonplussed. Why would the artist hurt him? The man sighed and closed his eyes briefly.

“You’re a Blutbad, right?” he asked, and Monroe felt himself go stiff. How did this guy know that? He smelled human – Monroe hadn’t been trying to scent him, but in that close proximity, it was impossible not to get a whiff – so how on earth had he seen the woge? Monroe knew it hadn’t been visible to all and sundry – the lack of panic from all the police told him that much – but if this guy had seen it regardless…

_I’m not going to hurt you._

Shit. Burkhardt was a Grimm. Monroe swallowed hard, suddenly dizzy, and stumbled back until the door handle pressed into his spine. It was uncomfortable, just close enough to the nerve cluster in his lower back to spark pain signals, but that was better than being close to the Grimm.

The Grimm that had put a table between himself and Monroe. The Grimm who had left the exit wide open; was holding his hands out; was acting submissive. Monroe blinked a few times. The Grimm who was standing still enough that Monroe wondered briefly if he was even breathing, just watching with wide grey eyes and a sincere expression.

“I’m Wieder,” Monroe blurted out, like that would make a difference, and the Grimm nodded slowly.

“I figured. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be talking to the police.”

The _you’d have ripped the guy’s throat out yourself_ went unspoken, but it hung heavy in the middle of the room. Monroe took a deep breath and a small step forward, just enough to stop the pain in his back. The Grimm lowered his hands, calm and smooth, like he thought any sudden movements would startle Monroe into either attacking or running away. Monroe swallowed again and took another step closer.

“You… You’re…”

“A Grimm,” the man said gently, speaking the word aloud, and Monroe flinched. “Yes. But I don’t hunt. I’m not like that. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He sounded so damn sincere, those eyes pleading with Monroe to believe him, and with the way he’d put himself in the vulnerable spot, boxed in, his entire posture designed to make himself look smaller, less threatening… Monroe might be a damned idiot, but he believed the man. A Grimm that didn’t hunt. It was… bizarre. Even more bizarre than a Blutbad that didn’t hunt.

He forced himself to relax, loosening his shoulders, and yeah, he was still holding himself stiffly, but he was standing in a room with his childhood (and a few adulthood) nightmares, so he thought that was warranted.

“So… what now?” he asked after a moment, and the Grimm took a slow step forward and seated himself at the table, in the chair furthest from the door that Monroe thought should probably be for suspects. He kept his hands visible at all times, and was still moving in that calm, smooth way, broadcasting everything. This obviously wasn’t his first time dealing with a Wesen.

“Now, you tell me what you actually saw, and I’ll sketch it out. I’ve gotten quite good at changing Wesen features to human ones with reasonable accuracy. It’s never exactly right, but it’ll be close. It’ll help catch the guy that killed your friend.”

Monroe had never met a Grimm before, but this was pretty much the exact opposite to the way he had expected it to go. He’d always known that they were real, rather than the fairytales that some Wesen proclaimed them to be. A Grimm had killed his grandfather. So, the possibility of running into one had been in his head since he was a child, and he had plans for how he would deal with it, should he ever be unlucky enough to run into one. None of his plans accounted for this.  
He slowly stepped forward and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the table, closest to the door. He didn’t quite shuffle it backwards, but he did lean as far away as he could. The Grimm grimaced, but didn’t comment.

“So, shall we try again?” he said, tone forced-casual. “What did you see?”

“A snout,” Monroe grunted after a moment. “He was a Bauerschwein.”

“Okay, that’s a good starting place,” the Grimm said, nodding. He picked up his pencil and started lightly sketching out a pig snout in the middle of the page. “That about right?”

Monroe tilted his head, to get a better look.

“Too round,” he said after a moment, studiously ignoring the utter absurdity of correcting a Grimm’s drawing of a Bauerschwein. “It should be wider, and there was a kind of dip in the middle at the top.”

The Grimm nodded and made the changes, turning the sketchpad so Monroe could see more clearly.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” Monroe agreed, and the Grimm twisted the page back around to continue drawing. He asked questions, which Monroe found a lot easier to answer than he’d thought he would, and by the time the drawing was finished, there was a very good likeness of the pig that had held him at gunpoint sketched lightly onto the page.

“That’s him,” Monroe said, and leaned back in his chair. “Though how you’re going to turn that into something they can put on the news…”

The Grimm just shot him a grin and turned the sketchpad before returning to drawing in a flurry of tiny, detailed movements. Monroe watched him work in silence; the man’s focus on the page was absolute, eyes narrowed as he adjusted the features, and Monroe wondered if remembered that he was alone in a room with a Blutbad. If he did, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. How the hell did a Grimm get comfortable with that kind of thing?

It made it easier for Monroe to relax as well though. His chair was closer to the table now; he’d needed to move it, about halfway through the sketching process, to get a good enough look at what was being done. The Grimm hadn’t changed his posture at all, which was encouraging, and now that he was entirely absorbed in his work, Monroe felt the last of the tension fall out of his shoulders. He was still primed to react should it be required, but he honestly didn’t think he would need to.  
He watched the Grimm’s hands, fingers flying over the page as he tweaked the drawing, and had to ask.

“Isn’t this weird for you? Sitting in a room with a Blutbad?”

“You mean not killing you?” the Grimm answered easily, not taking his eyes off the page. Monroe flinched, but the Grimm just shrugged one shoulder, a barely-there movement that didn’t interrupt the flow of his drawing. “No. I never had much of a ‘killer instinct’. Drove my aunt nuts.”

“Your aunt?” Monroe repeated dumbly after a moment of silence, because he wasn’t expecting the Grimm to give away any kind of personal information, let alone basically admit to being a family disappointment. The Grimm nodded absently, and Monroe wondered how much he was actually concentrating on the conversation.

“Yeah. She raised me, pretty much. I’ve known about everything since I was a teenager; she used to point out Wesen to me in the street, describe them, what they were, try to get me to recite information. I think she was trying to get me to follow in her footsteps. It backfired on her though. I only ever saw people.”

The Grimm leaned back in his seat, blowing lightly at the sketch, and turned it around to face Monroe, like he hadn’t just said the most utterly ridiculous thing the Blutbad had ever heard. “Well? That look about right?”

Monroe ignored the drawing for a moment, hung up on the fact that the man in front of him had been raised as a Grimm, and still somehow didn’t want to decapitate him on sight.

“You know about us? What we can do?”

“Yeah?” the Grimm said, like it wasn’t a big deal. “So? You’re Wieder; I have nothing to worry about.”

Monroe gave up on understanding how somebody that can not only see what Wesen really are, but was raised on what had probably sounded like horror stories, can apparently take all that in stride and just not care. Maybe the Grimm had a death wish. That might explain the blasé attitude. The Grimm sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes.

“I could get shot by any of the guys out there,” he said, voice going a little irritated as he gestured towards the door. “They all have guns. But they’re cops, so the likelihood of them turning around and killing me for the hell of it is really small.” He moved his hand to indicate Monroe instead. “Just because you _can_ tear my throat out, doesn’t mean you’re going to. Happy now?”

Monroe blinked, then decided that any way he answered that was just going to lead to more confusion, so he shook his head and looked at the sketch instead. His eyes went wide. The Grimm hadn’t been lying; he _was_ good at turning Wesen features into human ones. The nose was a little bulbous, in reference to the way Monroe had described the man’s snout, and the face was wide with small eyes. It matched what he’d said out in front of the detective, while also incorporating all the elements of the Wesen face it had started out as. This could very easily be the human face of the man that had burst into his home and pointed a rifle at him.

“Yeah, that looks good,” Monroe said, and the Grimm nodded and lowered the sketch pad onto the table.

“Alright. We’ll need to head back out and talk to Hank – Detective Griffin – some more, but that should be about it for my involvement, so you don’t need to worry about bumping into me again. I don’t have any access to information other than what you give me, and I’m not going to come find you. I’m too busy for that. Alright?”  
Monroe nodded, and the Grimm stood up. Monroe took a deep breath and did likewise.

“Okay.”

He took a step towards the door, then hesitated. The Grimm, still making sure not to get between Monroe and the exit, raised an eyebrow at him.

“Do they know? About…” Monroe waved a hand in the Grimm’s general direction. The man sighed.

“No. Do you really think they’d understand?”

Monroe snorted his answer to that. The Grimm smirked.

“Let’s go.”

They had to get closer to each other to exit the room. Monroe was quite proud of himself for not flinching. They walked together back over to Detective Griffin, and the Grimm carefully tore the drawing out of his pad and laid it on the desk.

“All done.”

Griffin nodded thanks at them.

“Great, tha…”

He trailed off, eyes going wide as he looked at the sketch. Huh? Monroe found himself glancing at the Grimm, who looked just as confused by this as he felt.

“Everything okay?” he asked, and Griffin’s head snapped up.

“You’re sure about this?”

The question was directed at the Grimm, who looked over at Monroe for confirmation. Monroe didn’t know why this was such a big deal, but he nodded slowly.

“Yeah. That’s the guy.”

Griffin muttered under his breath, and even with Monroe’s enhanced hearing, it was difficult to make out. A lot of it sounded like cursing.

“Alright, thanks. Wu! Can you come and finish off here? I need to talk to the Captain.”

The detective plucked up the sketch and stalked off without waiting for an answer. Monroe blinked at the Grimm.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing good,” was the only reply he got before an Asian sergeant came over, looking at them with raised eyebrows.

“Well, you certainly got Detective Griffin in a state. It’s always you, isn’t it Nick?”

That implied this kind of thing happened a lot; Monroe wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The Grimm just smiled and shrugged one shoulder.

“I like to keep things interesting,” he said, and Monroe tried not to snort. The Grimm gave him a look that said he wasn’t fooled, and rolled his eyes. “I’m done; I’ve got another officer to panic. See you later.”

He waved one hand over his shoulder and walked away. Monroe watched him go. He still didn’t quite believe everything that had just happened. He’d met a Wieder Grimm. Not only that, said Grimm was _helping_ him. Yeah okay, so it was in an indirect, doing-his-job-for-the-police kind of way, but still. A Grimm was helping out a Blutbad. Man, his life was strange.

He turned back to the sergeant, who gave him a small smile and gestured for him to sit down.

“So, let’s go over everything one more time…”


End file.
